Brine Inbox: Team USA Reaction, Conference Races

Welcome to the Brine Inbox, a mailbag where ILWomen's editor answers your questions about women's lacrosse... or anything in the remote realm of women's lacrosse for that matter. Have a question? Send it to ilwomen@insidelacrosse.com and see if it gets answered in an upcoming inbox. You can also submit a question on Twitter with the hashtag #BrineInbox or post it on our Facebook page.

Let's dive on in to this week's questions:

What are your thoughts on the final U.S. National Team roster?
—Bethany B.
Before I get to my personal thoughts on this, I want to say that I was pretty impressed with all of the reaction to the announcement of the roster on Twitter and not just the "congrats to the players that made it" kind of reaction, but the strong thoughts that some people had on the roster as well.

Syracuse assistant coach Brett Queener tweeted: "An absolute travesty that @MTumolo35 was not on the final USA Women's World Cup Roster... I'm embarrassed for whoever made that decision."

Whether they were positive reactions or reactions from people upset with a decision, the passion in the reactions showed that a lot of people care about this sport at the international level and that's fantastic for the growth of the game.

I think the most shocking omissions from this roster are on the offensive end. The first thing I noticed when I looked at the final roster was the absense of Shannon Smith and the second was that Michelle Tumolo was also cut. I don't think many people would argue that these two are at the top of their game and two of the best attackers in the sport. I also thought they both played excellent at the Champion Challenge — in what was a pretty balanced offensive game for Team USA, Tumolo and Smith led the way with three goals each. Like I said in my analysis following Champion Challenge, I certainly don't envy Ricky Fried and the coaching staff for having to make these decisions. I do think they have an excellent attack unit with great veterans in Lindsey Munday and Katie Rowan and a great newcomer in Katrina Dowd, but the absence of those two was the first thing that stuck out.

Selection committee chair Anne Phillips said at the first tryout in July that outside of things like stickwork, speed and athleticism, there were some intangible things that come into play, particularly chemistry and choosing what players complement each other best. Clearly, the coaching staff saw some of this more in the four players they chose than they did with Smith and Tumolo in the mix.

I don't think there was a lot that was shocking about the midfield: Brittany Dashiell, Kelly McPartland and Laura Zimmerman were the cuts from the 25-player roster. McPartland is only a sophomore and will certainly have another shot at this. Same goes for Dashiell, who is a senior and was a Tewaaraton finalst last season, but perhaps didn't do enough or mesh well enough to earn one of those final spots.

The defense is going to be awesome. It includes three players who competed on the gold medal-winning team in 2009 (Amber Falcone, Holly McGarvie Reilly and Gina Oliver). Add in Kristen Carr, who was impressive at every stage of the tryout process, and Jenn Russell, who's a sick athlete and can also contribute in transition, and I think you have the strongest defensive unit that will be playing in the World Cup this summer. For goalies, I think Devon Wills was an obvious choice — she remains the best in the game. It's tough to not go with the duo that played in 2009, but I think you could make an argument for giving Liz Hogan the backup spot and starting to groom the next generation of U.S. netminders.

I agree with Fried when he said that he'd have a spectacular roster no matter who he chose and I think this is a very strong roster. Overall, I think experience and having those veterans on the roster who have played together and have already developed that chemistry Phillips spoke of trumped the youth movement.

What is your superbowl prediction?
—James
Wow, not something I was expecting to get asked in a women's lacrosse mailbag, but I'll take a stab at it. I might be brainwashed from being surrounded by Ravens fans here in Baltimore, but I'm going with the Ravens 28-21 over the 49ers.

Everything seems to be going right for the team right now — they obviously got healthy at the right time, everything seems to be clicking on both sides of the ball. Whatever happens on Sunday, I think the Ravens will find a way to win.

Yep... definitely brainwashed!

What conference race are you most looking forward to this season?
—Jill T.
I think there are always a few conferences that consistently have exciting races for the title — the ACC, the ALC and the Ivy League. The ACC is always good because it's the best conference from top to bottom in the league and while Maryland and North Carolina have battled it out for the last few years, you're usually guaranteed to see some fast-paced, high-scoring, athletic games, which are the types we all love to watch.

The ALC has been exciting the last couple seasons to see Florida challenge Northwestern for the top spot and the Ivy League is becoming an "anyone's league" type of race more each year.

All that being said, I'm actually really interested to see what happens in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation this year. I think this was one of the most underrated conference races in 2012, and it's almost easy to somewhat cast it aside when the conference champion isn't getting an automatic qualifier to the NCAA Tournament. That changes this year with the new bracket. Rather than compete in a play-in game, the MPSF winner will be tournament-bound this season. Last year Oregon and Denver were the frontrunners throughout the season until Stanford beat the Pioneers in the conference semifinals.

Heading into 2013, Stanford is the at the top of the MPSF coaches' poll, but both Oregon and Denver also received first place votes. The race out west will certainly be an exciting one this year.